An investigation by Michael Braga, Aaron Kessler and Charlie Szymanski of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune used social network analysis and hundreds of land and corporation documents to uncover a web of questionable real estate deals involving a Southwest Florida investor and developer. The subject, Mark Brivik, moved properties back and forth between himself, companies he controlled,…
Read MoreIn a fourth installment of The Washington Post‘s Forced Out series, about abusive landlords who drive tenants from rent-controlled apartments, Debbie Cenziper and Sarah Cohen report that D.C. government has widely misused a multi-million dollar fund to repair buildings when landlords refuse to do the work. “In the past three years, the (city) spent $617,000…
Read MoreAn investigative narrative by Justin Fenton of The Baltimore Sun explores the life and crimes of Cindy McKay who “was convicted in April 2008 of secretly stealing thousands of dollars from her boyfriend and stabbing him to death before his body was found burning along an Anne Arundel County road.” A career criminal, McKay stole…
Read MoreKen Dilanian, of USA TODAY, reports members of the Congressional campaign committees are selling access to this summer’s political conventions in return for campaign contributions. This exploits a loophole in the ethics law meant to reduce special interests’ influence on members of Congress. “House Democrats are offering a ‘premier package’ at the Aug. 25-28 Denver…
Read MoreThe Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette published a two-day package marking the 30th anniversary of the Willow Island Disaster, the largest construction accident in U.S. history. Fifty-one construction workers died on April 27, 1978, when a scaffold collapsed during construction of a coal-fired power plant along the Ohio River. The Gazette examines the disaster’s causes, interviews survivors…
Read MoreThe first of two investigative reports from the Center for Investigative Reporting’s James Sandler examines the Bush administration’s efforts to squelch legal proceedings against two high ranking Chinese officials accused of torturing members of religious groups, including Fulan Gong. The two accused officials are former trade minister Bo Xilai and Beijing
Read MoreA two-week series by The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, explores a human trafficking and prostitution ring that flourished in the small towns of eastern Iowa. “By poring over hundreds of court records and reports, and through more than two dozen interviews, The Gazette has pieced together over the last year and a half the…
Read MoreA report by David Barstow of The New York Times reveals how the Pentagon has used a cadre of retired military officers to “generate favorable news coverage of the [Bush] administration
Read MoreBrendan Smith of the Washington City Paper reports on two suicides in the Washington D.C. jail that revealed widespread misconduct and inadequate mental-health monitoring by corrections personnel. For ten months, the Director of the Department of Corrections fought a FOIA request for the reports from the internal-affairs investigations into the suicides. The reports showed that…
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